Takura Zhangazha

Monday, 5 December 2016

The introduction of bond notes in Zimbabwe has not been as
apocalyptic as predicted by critics. Nor has it been as positive as anticipated
by those that support their introduction.
And in both cases, the politics of the bond notes has been muted. Despite some demonstrations planned and
threats of arrest and detention of those opposed to them, no political party
has gone full throttle in favour of or in rejection of them.

In fact most of the opinion battles have occurred largely through
the media. This was done mainly through editorials,
columns and biased hard news stories.
But even the private mainstream media moderated its anti-bond note tone
as the date of their introduction drew closer.
Not least because they were also now accepting revenue from the Reserve
Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) promotional advertisements.

The default verdict of many Zimbabweans however is while suspicious
and mistrusting of the government remains that of a ‘wait and see’
attitude.

One security guard I recently talked to explained with reservation that if it doesn’t
work, then he will cross the rejection bridge when he gets to it. For now all he wants is an end to the bank
queues and by dint of the same, not preoccupying his ‘off time’ in them.

In kombis, the key issue is always about the change that is
returned and whether its in bond notes or in actual United States dollars. But there is no rejection of change. There may be a bit of consternation, a bit of
grumbling about a lack of ‘fair’ aggregation of bond notes over the actual
currency. I assume that this would also
apply to the exchanges in flea markets and other informal trade arenas.

What is arguably true is that there is no nationalism that
is accompanying the bond note. Even from
ruling party supporters and policy makers.
The big debate is about their utilitarian (or lack of it) value and
nothing else. From issues of shorter
queues for cash, through to unpredictable exchange rates on the streets or via electronic
money transfers, there’s no immediate sense of national ownership of the bond
note. It is currently being viewed, and
understandably so, with derision, humour, and to the greater extent,
resignation.

In other words, the bond note is viewed as money, but money
that is inferior and money that does not reflect any popular national
acceptance. For the government it does
not have to. As long as it serves what Finance Minister Chinamasa has defined
as the reduction of the import of US dollars and preventing the externalisation
of those that are already in circulation.

The default acceptance of bond notes is therefore an
indicator of how far and the extent to which our nationalism is no longer defined
by what would be conventional measurements. Having a national currency would be
an easy one to point out. Rejecting one
proposed by government, even though not by popular dissent, would indicate that
our nationalism is no longer conventional by a long shot.

And this does not matter to the ruling party. It never claimed to have a brand of popular nationalism. Instead it is clear that its view of
nationalism leans heavily toward being ‘patriotic’. The latter being a state of affairs that, in
its probable view, does not require popular consent but a latter day version of
democratic centralism (i.e the few deciding for the many).

The downside of this lack of popular support for the bond
note is that it is indicative of how the general view of the national economy
is no longer determined by contextual factors.
Zimbabweans are increasingly global in their economic outlook. This means that they tend to accept the economic
systems/outlook of countries that they admire, including the USA whose currency
they stubbornly want to hold on to. As a
result, and largely due to lack of economic trust in their government, there is
a tendency by most Zimbabweans to defend neo-liberal economic policies even if
the world and global financial institutions such as the World Bank are increasingly
questioning their progressive economic impact.

It is this sort of approach that the Zimbabwean government is
also taking advantage of. It knows,
probably, that we will not question its economic policies beyond what they do
to our individual pockets as citizens. Or at least as a national collective. Nor in relation to social welfare and trying
give every citizen a fair start in this cutthroat and individualistic/atomised
national economic (dis)order. Hence its
tenacious and in part arrogant introduction of a currency no one really
understands but will eventually end up using even if under some sort of protest
or with an intention to fuel parallel money markets for illicit profit
purposes.

Until such a time we approach our national economic
challenges as holistically as practicable, and we stop having isolated
responses to what we perceive to be challenges as they affect us individually or
on the basis of our narrow class interests, we will remain beholden to a
central government that believes it can always get its way. Even with money.

Saturday, 26 November 2016

Cuban revolutionary Commandante Fidel Castro’s passing was
not a sudden shock for the world nor for us here in Africa. We already knew he was unwell and at his age,
we knew that his revolutionary life was near its end. He even let us know it and advised that the
ideas of the Cuban revolution will go on long after he has passed. Those ideals, much maligned by American media
and its presidents bar Barrack Obama, were unapologetically socialist. And by dint of their humane precepts also
African.

And Africa knows who Commandante Fidel was. And even if one
is not part of the liberation struggle generation of the continent, his name
was at some point whispered, his political exploits and his colossal
revolutionary reputation referred to in our schools, universities and progressive political
organizations. Even where we resided in
our African countries that were avowedly anti-socialist and in the ambit of the
West during the Cold War, we knew that if you mention Fidel, you mention a
revolutionary.

My first encounter with his world, his thought, his country was
not through a book. It was through a Zimbabwean
teacher who had recently returned from Havana to teach us chemistry in high school. Sometimes the chemistry was difficult but the
admiration the teacher had for Cuban society was self evident. In fact it was idealistic to a fault. I didn’t understand socialism or communism
proper nor why in any event, there was such a chasm between USA and Cuba
relations. Even after skimming through
the history books of the Cuban missile crisis.

Encountering Fidel at university was a different ball game.
In the late 1990s, with the Cold War effectively over and all but one African country
being free (remember the Saharawi Republic), it was all about Fukuyama’s
infamous ‘end of history’ dictum. We
were taught, not all the time, that communism is dead and liberal democracy and
economics are the definitive fulcrum of human (western) history. Ye the lecturers couldn’t fully explain the
stubborn island that was Cuba in this lexicon.
But we would debate it at International Socialist Organisation meetings
at the University of Zimbabwe Campus. As
wannabe revolutionaries we would cite all the Lenins, Fanons, Nkrumahs but
eventually end up referring to a living revolutionary in the form of Fidel Castro
in awe at how he could possibly be holding ‘socialist fort’ on the island that
was Cuba.

Overwhelmed by economic structural adjustment programmes and
forlorn about the receding global possibility of global socialism, we would
debate Castro is smaller spaces and occasionally watch video cassettes of Cuban
life and his very long speeches.

The South African and Namibian cdes, that we would meet as
activists at the turn of the century, would perpetually remind us of the
painful but legendary battle of Cuito Cuanavale and how it was the Cuban
defence forces that helped not only spur on their struggles but prevent
apartheid South Africa from having a stranglehold on the region.

And we were perplexed at why the American media at some
point raised eyebrows about African struggle icon Nelson Mandela’s state visit
to Cuba. We knew the Cuban people had
helped us throw off the shackles of colonialism, settler states and
apartheid. We knew of the
Tri-Continental conference that occurred in 1966 that Fidel hosted in Havana
after Che Guevara’s abortive trip to the then Zaire. We know he met and was impressed by the African
revolutionary Amilcar Cabral at that
meeting that re-enforced his revolutionary commitment to assisting African
liberation struggles from colonialism.

He was also to meet a majority of African liberation and
post independence leaders inclusive of icons such as Samora Machel and Julius
Nyerere among others.

And he didn’t end there. He continued, at great cost to his
own country to assist Africa in health and education. And he continued to be a moral voice against
the imperialism, neo-liberalism, liberal interventionist wars and global unilateralism
that has characterized the post Cold War global order.

As Africans we knew that Cuba’s differences with America
were not our creation nor ours to solve.
But like the solidarity that the Cuban people gave to us we returned it
at the United Nations and other global for a. Not in obligatory gratitude but more
form the lived experience of how our humanity binds us together regardless of
race, colour, creed or continent of origin.

And yes we read the biographies, watched the movies, documentaries
and even witnessed a handshake between Raul Castro and Barack Obama at Nelson
Mandela’s funeral. We saw the continually negative coverage of Cuba (as will be
the case during Fidel’s memorial services) in the now global media and argued
over why his socialism wrongly curtailed freedom of expression. But there is
one thing that we as Africans will always know, from liberation generations to
post independence ones and post Cold War ones. This being that African liberation struggle history is clear. To paraphrase his treason trial courtroom speech in 1953, ‘condemn him, it does not matter,’ our African struggle history absolves him.

Friday, 25 November 2016

I once had a extended argument with a fellow African who vehemently
supported the invasion of Iraq by the United States of America and its
allies. Not only that, he was a George
W. Bush aficionado. He liked the gung-ho ‘you are either with us or against us’
foreign policy that the then American government was pursuing.

When Obama was elected he was a bit more muted, but somewhat
going along with the global admiration of the American political system that
could against many odds choose a black person as president. But he stuck to the idea of a rapacious
America that where and when it chose, it would militarily annihilate its
enemies.

I tried to find the source of his admiration of the military
might of the USA. It turned out, like for many of us Africans, to be embedded
in the images and representations of that society in movies, television, music,
computers and other cultural products (clothes, religion and the like).

And true enough, as Africans we rarely view the USA from
ideological or even honestly analytical lenses.
In fact we rarely view the global north with an intention to objectively
critique it. Not that we don’t have
opinions on what happens in America or Western Europe.

They are however opinions that are more inclined to
admiration, envy, entertainment and tragically to viewing those countries as
the ‘promised land’. This ‘promise land’ view also explains why the Mediterranean
has become a watery grave for so many of us Africans. It is also the reason
why Europe and North America are voting for those that promise to keep not only
us as Africans out, but also those from the Middle East, Latin America and South
East Asia.

In dealing with these complexities we also turn to our
comrades in the global north to help us understand what it is that is going on
with their global superpower governments and systems. As a leftist, I have also sought explanation
from my fellow ideologues in the USA, the United Kingdom and mainland Europe. Asking for example, why would ‘Brexit’ happen?
Or how the USA’s president-elect could
have possibly won a free and fair election?

I however don’t ask my questions in admiration. I ask with ideological
empathy, with the full knowledge that the election of Donald Trump is
indicative of how progressive ideas are on the back foot when they are
subjected to popular democracy in both North America and Western Europe. The
not so new nationalisms that are emerging there and acquiring power on the
regressive basis of discrimination and exclusion of the non-white other are
evidently a global concern. They hark
back to what Africans that are conscious of their continent’s colonial history have
said ‘never again’.

And this is the key lesson for us as Africans to draw from
the political events and trends in the global north.

While what happens in North America and Western Europe
affects us politically and economically in relation to those regions’ foreign
policies, we need to learn that we should not always mimic their domestic
politics or political cultures.

We don’t have to anticipate the emergence of a candidate
similar to Donald Trump and call it a democratic process if they win an
election on what are arguably racist, sexist and pretentious grounds. Nor
should we allow our media to be captured by the elite few who seek more to
believe their won lies than hold those that seek political power to
account.

And we should always undertake our politics with an honesty
that understands that good, progressive ideas do not always move the majority
of our citizens if they are not accompanied by organic mobilisation and
actions. As Amilcar Cabral once wrote, ‘no matter how hot the water from your
well is, it will not cook your rice’.

Nor should we be in the habit of shunning those that we
think are on the periphery of our political systems. Or those that we think are
either ignorant or malleable to our views without either engaging them or
seeking to take their views into political account. And this relates in the greater parts of our continent
to our rural citizens who are treated in part as though they are still colonial
subjects. Both by way of the attitudes
of our political elites and the remnants of colonial administrative infrastructure.

Friday, 18 November 2016

The Ministry of Local Government in consultation with Apex,
the umbrella body of civil service associations, announced that it is rolling
out a residential stands allocation scheme for government workers. While not mentioning the commencement date of
the scheme, the government outlined that it had identified land that
could be allocated for residential use by civil servants on the outskirts of
some of our major cities.

The land will however not be free. It will be given to those that are on the
Salary Services Bureau (SSB) payroll.
Depending on the size of the residential stand that they want, they will
pay a maximum of U$4 per square meter per month for the smaller stands that will be deducted from
their monthly salaries.

The task for the civil servants though appearing to be a 'no
brainer' due to the severe shortage of housing in the country, is to accept this
sort of ‘housing loan’ while at the same time having less money in their
pockets at the end of the month.

Given
the fact that those already on the list are at least 113 000 (and probably rising), it would also
mean that governments wage bill, in real cash, is reduced fairly significantly. And also civil servants will feel, with
ownership of urban land/capital, that their salaries are giving them fair
returns for their labour.

The impact of this new government facility for its workers
are multi-fold. The obvious one is
political. Allegations of the ruling
party seeking to endear itself with the civil service ahead of general elections
in 2018 will soon, if they haven’t started already, emanate from the opposition
political party ranks. And
understandably so. The allocation of land to so many government workers will
not doubt have a significant political impact, not only in terms of establishing
new demographics to the voters roll, but also inducing loyalty to the party
that has gone the extra mile of providing elusive and expensive urban
land/capital.

It is also a loyalty that will spill over into the economic
sphere by not just mitigating any intentions by the civil service to undertake
national strike action similar to that of July 2016.

It will also lead to increased economic
activity and employment, depending on how transparent the tender processes of
support services (engineering companies, mortgage giving banks/building
societies,) or the ease with which small scale businesses can be allowed to
flourish in the new ‘suburbs’.

Socially it will mean a rapid expansion of urban population
and land use, a process which has been underway by default via housing
cooperatives and controversial ‘land barons’.

It will also make the civil service much more close knit socially
(almost setting them apart as a distinct social group) because of geographic
proximity. This may induce a strong sense of community among citizens that work
for the government and with that may come a certain pride (or restoration
thereof). That is if the envisioned new
residential areas for them can be immune from the urban vagaries of poverty,
unemployment and lack of social service delivery.

Perhaps the more significant off-shoot of this policy is the
conversion of the focus of the fast track land reform programme from
agriculture to urban use. It may not be
as violent, racially and politically charged as its predecessor but it is a
direct consequence of it. And it has its
fair share of violent evictions, demolition of houses, distribution by
patronage and political affiliation (Norton, Harare South).

With this new scheme the civil service is being sprung up
the ladder of privilege. And even in that it is not necessarily all about
equality. The different categorisations
of land size and probable housing structure/plans means that despite being
blanketed as ‘civil servants’, they remain viewed through class and seniority
lenses by government. For the lower paid
civil servants go the ‘ghetto’ size equivalent stands, while those that earn
more get the ‘suburb’ size ones.

So in essence while the civil servants and the leaders of their
associations/unions welcome this particular move by government they must be
wary of the fact that they are essentially being co-opted into a materialistic
silence. The land that they get should
not be a political burden nor a sign of their specific uniqueness above other
citizens through proximity to the state.
Every Zimbabwean should have the right to shelter. We hope they know that. We hope they will
remember that.

Wednesday, 9 November 2016

The Harare City Council (HCC) recently issued an odd equivalent of
an edict or decree. It announced, rather
ominously, and like an arrogant overlord of our urban life, that it is shutting
down house water supplies in at least eight residential areas of Harare. The
reason it gave for doing so is that there are too many defaulters on paying not
just for water but other charges such as refuse collection, sewerage and other
amenities.

It turns out that the announcement is intended to have at
least two effects. To scare
residents/ratepayers at the prospect of having no water at all and therefore
scramble to largely pay part of the amounts due. Even if they have queries or
issues about the bills they have received.
The second effect is to ensure that with the fear of further water
supply disconnections, residents of Harare will increasingly opt for the
pre-paid water meter option (which is already in pilot phase in some suburbs).

It is an interesting strategy that is being used here. It involves not only convoluted and abstract
importation of ‘business models’ as to how to run a city and dismissing democratic
values in favour of technocratic ones. The latter also includes statements from
incumbent Mayor Manyenyeni that implied that he views elected councillors (who
also elected him) as being too ignorant to run a city. How he remains in office after uttering such
remarks in the first place remains an oddity.
Such views are throwbacks to local councils that were run under the
Rhodesian regime that continually refused majority poor residents of the then ‘African’
townships the franchise on the basis of ignorance, downright racism, assumptions
of superiority by class and a lack of education.

This is the sort of attitude that informs decisions such as
the one announced on water cuts by the HCC.
It is an arrogance that wrongly appropriates for itself a specific superiority
based not only on irrelevant educational qualifications and the ridiculous assumption that having
studied a business degree or worked in some sort of managerial position in a
private company is what it takes to run a city.

This strategy also involves the collusion of the HCC with
central government and private capital. The
local government ministry protects council from further scrutiny and public accountability
only if it does its bidding. Especially
with regard to the awarding of tenders and adhering to specific directives. Private capital then wades into this undemocratic
and opaque relationship by angling for the tenders that it produces. And the big prize for private capital is that
of the prepaid water meter supply and distribution tenders. There is also that of the electronic billing system
for rates that will be linked not only to mobile banking but also the internet.
It would therefore follow that private capital would not want to upset its convenient
positioning in the apple-cart.

With all of this in mind, what the HCC, with the permission
of central government and excited anticipation of private capital, has ordered
is an assault on the right of Harareans to water.

From whichever angle one looks at it, the threat of the
denial of access to water in lieu of lack of payments for other amenities is an
assault on human dignity and livelihood. The actual act of disconnecting the water is
an inhumane act that even if it occurs next door, it would make our own rainmakers
weep and worry whether indeed their libations for rain will be heeded.

Someone might ask but what is the solution? It certainly is
not denying residents access to water en-masse
or even threatening to do so. It lies in
discarding elitist notions of what it means to be a resident of any urban
settlement, shaking off our colonial hangover understandings of what is best
practice of urban local government and integrating a people-centred and democratic
approach to policy making and administration of councils. It also means making the HCC abandon its
neo-liberal privatisation projects that seek to turn what is public capital into
private profit.

To do all of this, residents, either through their associations
or other forms of community based organisations (churches included) with a special
concern for the livelihood and well-being of not only their children but also
their neighbours must question the HCC more than they are currnelty doing. This means having a greter understanding of
the city that they want, one that must be inclusive, welfarist, people-centered
and democratic without the evoking of notions of a ‘qualified franchise’.

Friday, 4 November 2016

A comrade in the academic world recently sent me a copy of a
New Left Review article entitled ‘The Heirs of Gramsci’. Largely focusing on intellectuals
who furthered the Italian philosopher’s thoughts and views on hegemony, the
article brought Zimbabwe into vogue particularly through its examination of the
‘dominance without hegemony’ concept as introduced by Indian organic intellectual
Ranajit Guha. In this case dominance would
relate to coercion while hegemony would point to persuasion of the governed outweighing
their enforced submission to power.

In Zimbabwe this is a salient point that we must consistently
analyse if we are to understand how the ruling Zanu Pf party has continued to
hold power (dominance) for so long.

The simplest of explanations has been that it is because of
the military and other ancillary security arms of the state. Political violence, militarising of civilian
arms of the state have been valid examples of the mechanism of power retention
by Zanu Pf. But to pursue that analogy
on its own is not enough.

What appears to define Zanu Pf’s dominance is a combination
of its ability to coerce, induce collaboration, submission with limited concern
for democratic persuasion of those it currently governs.

Coercion comes largely through repressive tendencies of
limiting freedom of expression, association and assembly through both political
violence and the partisan positioning and use of state security.

Collaboration is through its own members who are also
beneficiaries of state largesse through land redistribution, employment in the
civil and security service, protection in the informal sector and allocation of
urban land/capital as well as issuing of state tenders.

Submission relates more to the fact that in the greater
parts of our rural areas, there is resignation to Zanu Pf rule as informed not
only by the threat of violence but also the political culture that is informed
by a fear of challenging dominant power (traditional and political).

This is however not to say alternative political parties and
formations have not tried to challenge this Zanu Pf dominance without persuasion.

The opposition MDC-T has come close
electorally to defeating Zanu Pf as evidenced by the 2008 harmonised election
that eventually resulted in a SADC mediated inclusive government. The co-option of the MDC-T into this government
under regional pressure ensured that its counter-hegemonic project was to
flounder at the altar of collaboration.

It also fell victim to what Guha in the above cited article
refers to as a ‘revenge of the repressed’ also took on characteristic of
coercion that were key aspects of the very same party they wished to remove from
state power electorally. Political violence, though not as prominent as in the
ruling party has also reared its head in opposition politics while the
prevalance of splits and factions has indicated a culture of intolerance of
divergent views and an inability to focus on strengthening the counter-
hegemonic project.

In the opposition therefore, its ability to persuade has not
overcome its preference for coercion and exclusion.

While the blame for mimicry of the ruling party lies
essentially with the leaders of the opposition, it cannot also be overlooked that
the dominant political culture produced by Zanu Pf remains shared across the
political divide.

Hence opposition leaders hold on to power no matter how small
or big their political outfits are and retain a coterie of hangers-on while
suppressing intra-party democracy.

For organisations that claim to be outside of the political
realm and in the aftermath of the new constitution which they energetically
campaigned to be passed in the 2013 referendum, they can only now collaborate with
Zanu Pf’s dominance. By way of supporting
the implementation of the new constitution and also defending their own
sectoral interests and shunning broader, inclusive counter-hegemonic
agendas.

And Zanu Pf understands the weaknesses of the political opposition
and the fragmented, incrementalism of non-state actors. Hence it is pre-occupied with re-arranging its
own internal power dynamics in preparation for its own inevitable succession from
the leadership of its incumbent leader Robert Mugabe. Where protests have occurred, it has used
coercion and in some cases submission (war veterans) to retain a relatively comfortable
hold on state power.

Assumptions of the
poor performance of the national economy compromising its hold on power may
lead to the opposite. That is increased collaboration with the state in order
to retain livelihoods, acquire capital (e.g. land).

To state the obvious therefore, Zanu Pf does not have the hegemony that it would
want. Nor does it appear too keen on
working on a key component of a democratic hegemony which is that of persuasion
being greater than coercion. And in
this, it is being assisted by a weakened opposition that seeks more to mimic the
ruling party’s understanding of power than it seeks to fully establish a counter
hegemonic struggle for social democracy.

Saturday, 15 October 2016

Travelling by airplane across borders on the African
continent is an interesting experience. It
is always an encounter with what we have always been politicized with as Pan
Africanism, even if it is no longer as ideological or identity driven. Especially if it’s that typical flight that
leaves one capital for another before it arrives at a major air transport hub
such as Addis Ababa, Johannesburg or Nairobi.
And I will confess to a feeling of pride every time I hear pilots announce
an approach to OR Tambo or Jomo Kenyatta international airports.

Sometimes, circumstances such as airline inefficiency or bad
weather prolong the encounter with fellow African travelers. These delays, postponements or cancellations
make being an African in transit in an African country the more interesting. Travelers are compelled to talk to each other. Be it about final destinations, professional interests,
family or complaining about the landing
or the take-off. Or even to try and find alternative routes, solutions or make
the culprit airline pay by threatening to sue them or how such a thing would
never happen in a persons country of origin.

Their reasons for being on a flight will however differ in interesting
ways. A couple of decades back, flying
was perceived by many an Africa as a status symbol. By way of class, prestige or seeking to be as
‘modern’ as our human colleagues in the Global North.

These days, and probably into the future, being a frequent
flyer is no longer seen as evidence of sophistry let alone as a sign of
wealth. Not only because there are more
airline companies that are (exorbitantly for now) seeking out the African
market but because of that oxymoronic term ‘globalisation’. This is not to say that flying is affordable
let alone availed for a majority of Africans.
Far from it. But it is increasingly
something that more and more Africans across class and social status can claim
to know at least one of their close family members has experienced at least once.

As Africans, we fly across our national borders mainly for
business and trade. And this is not only
for corporate business. Any flight you
take and if you are in economy class, the majority of Africans on board will be
doing so to go to either South Africa, China or Dubai to transact in buying goods
(clothing, cloned technological gadgets, cars) to sell back home.

Other African passengers are also Diasporans going back to
former colonial capitals where they have ‘made it’. In tandem with their children who have
citizenship of the countries of destination, these Diasporans save a lot of
money to make these travel and travail arrangements. Hence their trips are not always frequent but
when they do happen, they help demystify flying significantly. If its not them travelling it is their relatives
(parents/brothers/sisters/aunts) who are paying them a long planned (and
expensive) visit.

And our African airlines know this. Hence their priority has never been
inter-Africa flight for its own sake. It
is always the more lucrative cross continental flight that they prioritise in a
manner that not only reinforces the Global North as the ‘promised land’ but
also undermines the pursuit of positioning African lives as normal.

It is an astounding reality that African passengers in
Africa are not necessarily treated with as much respect as African travelers travelling
to the global North or even the far east.
The courtesy and professionalism of airlines and their staff is markedly different between a trip to Abuja and a trip to London.

The derision with which airlines treat a threat to sue after
a delayed flight between two African destinations and the seriousness they
imbue a similar threat for a flight in for example North America is not only sad but dehumanizing to the African traveler.

Africans want to fly. The only problem that because of the complicity
of the airlines, flying is still considered the exception rather than the
rule. That is why it remains so
expensive and why airlines (state owned/commercialized or private) tend to
treat the African flyer as second class passengers. The more professional flights
are those to the global north. Not those
between African countries. It is a throwback
to colonial times that a flight from Harare to Lusaka can be casually delayed
and passengers forced to stay overnight without due explanation and diligence. That would not happen on a flight from Berlin
to Paris with such nonchalance.